


Five First Times

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Romantic Fluff, Secret Crush, Sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 23:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16775059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Five times were the first time Noctis knew he was falling in love with Nyx Ulric. And without his knowing it, Nyx was too.





	Five First Times

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/180596829447/hi-there-first-of-all-love-your-work-bloody) for a prompt fill!

The first glance happened from across a crowded room.

It wasn’t the first time he’d ever seen Nyx Ulric. It wasn’t the first time he’d ever made direct eye contact with Nyx Ulric, either.

But it was the first time he really… noticed him. The first time he really _saw_ him.

Noctis couldn’t say for sure what changed in his perception of him – Nyx had always been there, like so many of his father’s Kingsglaive, standing so still in the shadowy hallways of his whole life that they were more like decorative statues than living agents. Maybe he’d had one glass of champagne too many to make it through the strict, social graces of the upper-class gathering. Maybe it was just that he was finally old enough, and curious enough, and had two eyes that could see well enough how attractive Nyx Ulric was.

Maybe he didn’t need a reason to look. Maybe he was the Crown Prince of Lucis, and if he’d rather let his eyes wander towards exotic braids and mysterious tattoos, instead of the catalogue cutouts of Lucian nobility introduced to him on a conveyer belt of scripted greetings and rubbed elbows, he damn well could. Who was going to tell him otherwise?

The looking back probably should have told him otherwise. That was the general rule of people-watching – if you looked to the point that someone looked back, you looked a little too long. So, when Nyx’s flinty stare chipped to a halt along his vigilant circuit of the room, suddenly linked to Noct’s like a key clipped to a chain… he probably should have stopped looking.

There were rules to this, his absent-minded pastime. Laws of social delicacy he didn’t need to learn under Iggy’s careful study to know what was right and what was wrong. He should have looked away, lest an errant glance solidify into an awkward, uncomfortable stare.

But much as he tried to convince himself to stop – to look down at his glass, over at the hors d’oeuvres, out the window; look for his father, for Ignis, for Gladio, for anyone else he knew in the crowded ballroom – Noctis remained caught on those quicksilver eyes.

Noctis asked himself why Nyx wasn’t looking away, either. He had his own rules to abide, after all. His job was to look at everyone _but_ the Crown, not to linger too long on one space unless he miss the danger coming from another. Noctis asked himself why he didn’t follow the same rules he himself was supposed to be observing, purposefully glancing away to keep the contact from turning untoward.

But he didn’t. And Noctis didn’t.

And the longer he looked, the more he realized that the glint in Nyx’s eye was like light off of a mirror; a reflection of Noct’s own curiosity. Except Nyx wasn’t ashamed by it, didn’t turn his face away from it like Noctis had been trained to do. Instead he embraced it. Trusted it.

Instead, he smiled at him.

* * *

The first time he ever touched Nyx Ulric was by accident.

Or, at least, it was the first time he ever touched Nyx Ulric and realized he was doing it. The first time he actually registered the contact, _felt_ the nuance of his skin against his, fragile, fleeting touch though it was.

Maybe it wasn’t the first time they’d ever touched. Maybe he’d bumped his shoulder, passing in the hall. Maybe he’d been escorted from a room with a hand against his back, and never bothered to look up at which bodyguard was guiding him on any given day. Hell, maybe he’d even covered him when he was being shot at by Nif infiltrators, rough hands seizing him by the arms and tossing him under a magic shield, and Noctis never bothered to ask for the name of his rescuer then, either.

He wasn’t sure. And the more he caught Nyx Ulric out of the corner of his eye since that night in the ballroom, the less sure he was about a lot of things.

It was just routine. Packages were always screened by whatever guard was stationed over him per the day. Whether it was mail to his own apartment, or mail to the Citadel’s secure box, someone always checked it. Someone always made sure it was safe. Someone always in Lucian security black, always delivered it straight to his hands.

Nyx was the lucky courier, one day. Nyx striding into the little study Ignis tutored him in, heavy boots beating the carpet in steady time to Noct’s own heartbeat. Nyx, friendly with a crooked smile and a, “Morning, Highness,” as he handed him the package. It was a video game, and he usually had those orders sent straight to his apartment to be ready to play when he got home, but he’d wanted to have this one in his hands the second it came; he’d waited so long for its release, he just wanted the experience of opening it up and holding it himself.

Noctis recognized the shape of the packaging at once, bored mood instantly brightening as he stood up to take it from his hands. “Thank you!”

In his haste, his fingertips grazed Nyx’s as the cardboard box was traded between them. And while it wasn’t one of those electric shock moments like he read about in Gladio’s romance novels, Noctis just… _felt it._ He lingered on it, long after Nyx had left the room with a courteous bow and a quiet, “Enjoy.”

The giddiness he felt towards his game recalibrated, targeting the odd, tingling sensation on the tips of his fingers. He pondered the temperature of Nyx’s hands – hot, heated from the inside-out by an inferno he couldn’t name – the texture of his skin – rough, calloused fingers; fingers that worked knives, spells, tools of all sorts – and the surprising gentleness with which those fingers had receded from beneath his.

As if he felt Noctis, too.

As if he was trying not to let him know.

* * *

The first time he asked him out was in a panic.

The first time he’d put a request in for training with the Kingsglaive, in the slim hopes that he might be paired with Nyx as a tutor, had been in a panic, too.

After weeks of wondering, imagining, sighing when he should have been paying attention to anything else but the clever quirk of Nyx Ulric’s mouth, Noctis finally resolved that he needed to do something about it. He needed to know Nyx Ulric better. And he knew there were probably easier ways of going about it, more direct ways of getting to know a person, but the simple answer to any problem he’d ever had never came to Noctis until he’d exhausted all the more complicated ones.

Instating himself under Nyx’s tutelage was such an incredible feat in bureaucratic espionage that it would have made Iggy shed a tear – whether for his pride in Noct utilizing his lessons, or for his shame that _this_ was how he chose to implement his teachings.

Eventually, Noctis got his way, and Nyx Ulric, the “Hero of the Kingsglaive,” was in charge of teaching him the trick to warp-strikes.

But all Noctis learned in that brief span of time was that he had a stupid big crush on Nyx “Voted-Best-Dressed-In-Leather-Pants” Ulric. Noctis had set out with the intent of getting to know _Nyx_ better, but all he succeeded in was getting to know himself a little better than he bargained for.

He thought he knew what he liked in a guy, thought he had a pretty firm understanding of his personal tastes in attractiveness. But the way Nyx talked, the way Nyx wore that uniform, the way Nyx moved – prowling the training field like a jungle cat toying with its prey (and Noctis was _so_ ready to be devoured) – the way Nyx cocked his head and flashed his knife-point grin and goaded Noctis into his strikes had him steaming in ways he hadn’t been prepared for.

He’d been curious, that was all. And his curiosity boiled beneath his skin now, fighting to get out lest it combust inside of him. Every one of his wayward fantasies ignited like dry leaves in a rainless summer, pinned down to the dust for failing to warp-dodge away from Nyx’s assault.

His throat clogged with imaginary smoke from his burning lungs as Nyx breathed over him, the smell of his magic and his sweat and the heat of his skin a heady cocktail of desire Noctis was dangerously close to giving into. With Nyx’s hands around his wrists, pressing down on either side of his head, those same, rough fingers he’d only just barely skimmed in the past… With Nyx’s hips sunken down on his, sending a riot of wanton fascinations firing off in his brain…

And Nyx’s eyes, wild with warp magic above him, bright, silver-blue like frosted glass… Noctis wanted him to kiss him, take him, do whatever he wanted with him, right then and there.

If the gods truly did watch over the line of kings, they stopped him from saying anything quite so forward. But he did manage to stammer out an embarrassingly high-pitched, “Date me,” instead.

Nyx’s heaving breaths ceased, the sharp, exhilarating lines of his face going slack in surprise. The grip on Noct’s wrists loosened, and the Prince feared he would recoil and he could never show his face around here again.

But then Nyx smiled. And his hands tightened again. Just a little. A promise.

“Name the place, Highness.”

* * *

The first time they kissed… was a lot.

It wasn’t on the first date, nor on the second. They weren’t even on a date when it happened.

Noctis couldn’t quite remember who started it – or if that even mattered at this point. He just knew that after weeks upon weeks – maybe a month, he wasn’t sure, he hadn’t been counting the days or anything – of this abrupt infatuation with Nyx Ulric had finally reached past the point of no return.

They’d just been walking, headed home after a late day of training. Nyx had insisted on seeing him safely to his apartment. Noctis had insisted the same right back, teasing that he was the stronger of the two of them, _he_ should be protecting _Nyx_ on the “mean” streets of Insomnia. That had fed into a friendly argument all the way home, which ended up being Nyx’s place after all. Whether by habit or intention, Noctis didn’t really know – and he, honestly, didn’t care.

All he cared about was the electric charge between them as they fumbled over empty excuses to go their separate ways, and neither moving to do so. All he cared about was the careful invitation in Nyx’s smile, the cautious optimism hammering away in Noct’s own chest.

He remembered the door opening, didn’t remember whatever half-maimed justification he made for going in, and either they both went for it, or he went for it – it was probably him, he wasn’t nearly as patient as Nyx seemed to be – and then, it was just the kissing.

His first kiss with Nyx was a lot of kisses, all at once. Deep, delicate kissing; slow and hard; long and soft; half concealed passions unveiled in their entirety, the sheets tugged down a little lower with each pass of lips dragging across lips. It was far from the first time he’d ever kissed a guy, but it might as well have been the first time he kissed a man, kissed someone who knew themselves completely, pressed experienced, scraped lips into his own with a tingling intensity of patience and urgency.

It wasn’t like the sloppy, stuttering kisses of the boys he liked before, not the endearing nervousness of first-timers trying to make it perfect for the Prince of Lucis. A small, squeak of a voice in the far back of Noct’s mind tried to convince him he wasn’t ready for this caliber of a lover. That he was out of his league, out of his depth, that Nyx exceeded his expectations in every, conceivable way and he was always going to fall short in comparison.

But he didn’t care if he was ready or not. He wanted it, wanted him, wanted to trust the instincts that he was taught to second-guess, triple-guess, before he ever decided to act on them. He wanted to be a little impulsive, wanted to feel something different, wanted to sink into Nyx’s big, bronzed arms, taut with muscle and scarred by magic and inked with secrets Noct wanted to uncover. He wanted the roughness of his calloused fingers in his hair, the absence of diplomacy as Nyx’s kisses pressed him to the wall. He wanted to feel what it was like to let go of the inhibitions he’d forced himself to hide behind for so long, wanted to admire Nyx up close instead of from afar.

He didn’t know how long they kissed before Nyx pressed his forehead to his and panted between them, didn’t know if he’d been doing anything right, if he pleased Nyx as much as Nyx pleased him. He didn’t know a lot of things, but he knew the answer when Nyx asked, “Is this okay with you?”

“Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t, hero.”

* * *

The first time Nyx said “I love you” was not with the words “I love you.”

He didn’t know it could be said any other way. Didn’t know if Noctis would understand it the way he meant it. Didn’t know if it was an acceptable substitute for just saying the words the whole world knew better.

He’d been in love before – twice; one wasn’t reciprocated, one just didn’t last – and maybe it was fear that locked the words he meant to say behind the words he said. Maybe he was so desperate to hold onto this one, have it said back to him, have it last, have it said more than once, for many years, maybe even for the rest of his life, that he choked them back behind something else.

He was terrified of losing Noct, of scaring him away, of pushing something huge like an “I love you” on him when he might not be ready to hear it. He’d been so careful with him, and not just for his own self-preservation – a Kingsglaive – an _immigrant –_ seeing the Crown Prince of Lucis without the whole world knowing and persecuting him for his impudence.

He’d been careful because he wanted him to stay. He wanted him to know he was safe with him, that he cared about him, far beyond either of their stations, beyond a one-and-done affair, more than a little indulgence, toying with danger between the shadows of the Citadel. He wanted this to be so much more than what he was afraid it might be. That he’d gotten too attached to something that was never meant to last. That love was never supposed to factor in to what they were doing behind the plush, closed doors of the royal apartments.

But Noctis was so damn sweet, so good, so honest with his smile, his eyes, the way he touched him, body and soul, like he was being just as careful himself. Nyx wanted so badly for it to be for the same reasons. That he was just as afraid to be in love and they could both laugh over how stupid they were being for tip-toeing around what they so obviously both wanted.

If it was real, Noctis would understand him… right? He would know, without Nyx ever having to say it, that he loved him. Right? He would know, and he would stay, and maybe Nyx would be able to understand him, too, if he ever said it without the right words. And if he didn’t, well, it was still Nyx’s secret. He would just have to keep it for a little while longer.

He said it in the middle of the night, when his apartment was black and blue under the filtered moonlight through the Wall. When thin strips of indigo cut through the blinds, slotting over Noct’s matching eyes, bright, but sleepy beneath the mussed, black fall of his hair. He said it with his fingers in that hair, gently pulling along each silken lock, smoothing out the tangles his fists had made in the fitful passions they shared in his bed. He said it after months and months of Noctis making this place his home away from home, of making Nyx feel like he was better than he was, worthy of more than he expected; like he might really belong here.

He said it in near-silence, so quiet, he almost hoped Noctis didn’t hear. Didn’t understand what he really meant when he said, “My little king.”

But Noctis always heard his voice when it felt like this city had swallowed it up and coughed out the shreds long ago. He always seemed to understand in a place determined not to. It was what made him think he might love him back, might understand him when he meant to say “I love you, _so much_.”

If the way his heart swelled when Noctis shifted a little closer in the dark, cupped a hand to his face to kiss him so gently after the ardor of their love-making, and whispered against his lips words like a long lost code clicking into place, he knew that it must be true.

“My big, dumb hero.”


End file.
